


in perfect silence

by justdoityoufucker



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien Cultural Differences, Family Feels, Friends to Lovers, Galra Keith (Voltron), Internal Conflict, M/M, Season 01 to Season 07 Canon, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-04 21:05:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15849357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdoityoufucker/pseuds/justdoityoufucker
Summary: Coran tugs his moustache, “Galra form extremely powerful bonds with those they love. Of course, that doesn’t stop the salty dingoes from being a menace to all other races in the universe.”





	in perfect silence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leafvillagebitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leafvillagebitch/gifts).



> For Sus, thanks for getting me into this horrible horrible show. And also back on my soulmate bullshit because apparently that's the one thing I didn't leave behind with Naruto.  
> And, for those of you with keen eyes, yes the Crochaxes are a reference to BG&E because I'm still a sucker for that game.

They’re passing the Traxor system when Keith tunes into the conversation that eventually will change his life. It’s a mystery how they first get on the topic, but he does know that it probably has nothing to do with anything important. Coran has a penchant for sharing information even when not asked, so Keith assumes that is what is happening as he finally tunes in to the conversation of the others.

“--the term refers to a life-partner,” Coran is maniacally twirling his moustache as he speaks, “of course, it’s not unique to the Crochax, many species have similar mating and bonding behaviors. Typically, they do so for life.”

“Many species?” Pidge gets a similar look in her eyes, her hands poised over the keyboard at her station, “What other ones do you know of? That might come in useful.”

Keith has his mouth opened to ask how that would be useful and what the hell they’re talking about when Coran loudly continues.

“Well of course there’s the Barthians,” he begins, and that results in a waterfall of information that is completely useless to anything that, you know, they’re  _ actually doing _ , so Keith blocks it out as best he can. Of course, Lance and Pidge egg Coran on, so for the next hour the Altean drones on about Barthians and Zummers and Keith is about a tick away from ripping his own ears off when Allura interrupts.

“You’ve forgotten the Galra,” her tone is light, but still derisive.

“Whaaaa?” Lance falls off his chair; maybe that monologue was worth it.

“The  _ Galra _ ?” Hunk interjects.

“That’s true,” Coran tugs his moustache, “Galra form extremely powerful bonds with those they love; I don’t know the term in Galran, but it refers to a bond lasting their entire lifetime, that lasts despite distance and time. Of course, that doesn’t stop the salty dingoes from being a menace to all other races in the universe.”

Keith nearly chokes on his own spit at the ‘salty dingoes’ and is gratified that he isn’t the only one. He glances over at Shiro and the man’s face is almost red, his flesh arm pressed to his mouth as if he’s coughing. Hunk is curled around his console, shaking, and Pidge has a twisted look on her face as she tries not to laugh.

“Wait, wait wait, Coran, can you say something for me?” Lance says, and Keith again decides his attention is best placed elsewhere.

Galra, though. That’s an interesting fact.

-

The setting: the lounge. The characters: the Paladins of Voltron, Princess Allura of Altea, and four space mice. The mood: painfully lazy. Lance is snoring atop Hunk, who’s blearily trying to put together a recipe for cookies that won’t come out as literal pucks of glass. Pidge is flopped over Keith’s legs, grumbling at him about coding inconsistencies; Keith in turn is leaned against Shiro’s shoulder, trying and failing to sleep. Allura is the only one sitting properly, but that’s simply because the mice are braiding her hair and she fell asleep like that.

Pidge trails off mid-sentence, her breathing evening out and her arms pulling her tablet to her like a beloved stuffed animal. Shiro’s hand presses against the small of Keith’s back. He’s wide awake, painfully aware of how close everyone is--how close  _ Shiro _ is. 

Keith has never been particularly tactile but he finds himself pressing in to Shiro’s touch. Things between them have changed;  _ they _ have changed. Not just him and Shiro. He can’t accurately pinpoint when they all became truly comfortable with each other. Perhaps it wasn’t a single instant, but a slow building, like drops of water filling a bucket.

But it’s Shiro, in particular.

And thought is, in all honesty, a little paralyzing. He’s never viewed other people as necessary, at least, not until Shiro. Even then, Shiro was an outlier; Keith’s entire existence has been bent toward survival, and that is a solitary endeavor.

Warmth curls in his stomach as Shiro’s arm limply drapes over his shoulder. The connection he feels--it’s new, but it fits.

And he falls asleep like that, squished between Pidge and Shiro. The war can wait, for a few moments.

-

_ Breathe _ , he tells himself.

A half dozen more Galra appear from the floor vents, and though he’s sluggish and in pain and can’t breathe properly, again he tells himself,  _ breathe _ .

And he wedges his blade in the floor panel, slides through it.  _ Breathe. _

Watches Shiro, the one person who has never left him, who has never given up on him, leave.  _ Breathe, breathe, breathe. _

But he can’t, the rejection hurts his chest, like someone dug a hand in there and squeezed his heart, and it’s only when Shiro returns, and the blade jumps under his fingers with light and energy that he finds himself able to breathe again.

And then time seems to blur, and when he blinks to awareness he’s managed to get back to Red, finally alone in her hanger, safely hidden next to her belly. Keith breathes, curls into himself, and gently fingers the compress on his left shoulder. Kolivan and Antok are still speaking with Allura. He had taken his leave without anyone noticing. It hurts, the betrayal, the  _ hatred _ on Allura’s face; the confusion from the other Paladins, the fear. It’s too much, to handle their emotions as well as his own, when he’s still trying to process the fact that he’s  _ half-Galra. _

There’s no one he can ask, no one to teach him about his past. Of course he wanted to face the Blade of Marmora to get an answer, but now that it’s done, now that he knows, he almost wishes he’d had the courage to step back from it all. Give the blade up.

The thought, though serious, is a painful one. The blade is the one thing that remains to give any indication of what his father and mother knew, how they were connected to everything. 

The stone embedded in the guard is cool and dark as he runs his thumb over it. Different from how it had burned in his hands, drawing on some power within him to grow. Keith slips it back in the sheath, tells himself not to think about it, not to think about anything.

But he can’t stop his mind from slipping back to Shiro, facing away from him. Shiro, rejecting him. Something about that, even the memory of it, is more painful than the rest of the trial.

Red rumbles, her presence in his mind reassuring, soothing. Promising, almost, that it’ll be fine.

“Keith?” The voice shatters the silence, the voice of the one person Keith was hoping would come, but also wished to desperately avoid.

Despite his internal protests, Red uncurls to allow the Black Paladin access. She feels chiding in his mind, so he grumpily accepts that Shiro is now standing a few feet from him, looking incredibly worried and awkward.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he looks so...small, standing there, hands clasped behind his back.

Keith feels like he’s wilting. Shiro came back, and here he is again, but it still feels like there’s a wall of sorts between them. The talk they had in Red when travelling to the base rises, unbidden, in his mind. Shiro expects so much of him, so much that he can’t do and doubts he will ever be able to do, but the killer is that Keith is willing to do those things so long as he doesn’t disappoint Shiro.

His chest is pained again, and he doesn’t know if it’s because of the trial or because of his own thoughts. A glance up, to meet Shiro’s eyes, and there’s none of the expectation there. Worry, of course, and as their eyes meet, Shiro steps forward. “Keith,” he says, tone almost pleading.

“I’m fine,” Keith rasps. Shiro doesn’t believe it, that much is clear on his face, clear in him pulling Keith up, looking him over.

“I’m always here for you, you know that, right?”

Keith bites back a snappy reply, forces the heat that is gripping his chest down. “I know.”

-

It’s a relief to work for the Blade, though he does miss the Castle of Lions, the other Paladins. Shiro, now that Shiro’s back and healthy and most definitely alive. But having distance from that, the ability to think objectively, the ability to help in a direct way--that is worth it. They really are making progress, tracking the unmarked shipments of quintessence, and despite everything, he does feel like he fits with the Blades.

But still, it’s something of a jolt when he meets Krolia.

Correction: when he meets his  _ mother _ .

If she wasn’t telling him to focus before they are blasted into dust, he’d be interrogating her. There’s so much that he simply doesn’t know, about her, about her relationship with his father, about himself.

Fucking hell, did Kolivan even know? He doesn’t realize that he’s asked that outloud until he hears Krolia curse in Galran, a particularly filthy string of words. He chances a look over his shoulder as they leave the atmosphere, and there’s a dark look on her face that is pointedly not directed at him.

“Kolivan probably did know,” she snaps, realigning the blasters to shoot through some debris in their way. “When we get back, I’m going to kick his ass to the Haradian system for this.”

And Keith thinks,  _ firebrand _ , as Shiro used to call him, years before on Earth, bites back a smile. She’s his mother, all right.

-

They’ve been in the Abyss for roughly six Earth months when the thought--or rather, the memory--hits him. As if it was just waiting for the opportune time to rise up again. “ _ Galra form extremely powerful bonds with those they love, _ ” he can all but hear Coran saying, like an echo across time.

“Was dad--” he bites the sentence off, not sure if he should actually ask. “Coran mentioned that Galra form...bonds with those they love.”

Krolia’s lips curl into a smile, and he can see her ears darken barely a shade. “He was,” her gaze softens, as if she sees something off in the distance. Remembering.

Keith’s seen enough glimpses of the past to know that it’s true.

“Though, I am surprised that an Altean would know of that,” Krolia adds, turning back to Keith, eyes sharp.

“That was all they said,” Keith says, trying not to sound defensive. After all, many things change in ten thousand years, and the Galra had been allied to the Alteans before.

“Really?” The smile again curves her face, and Krolia sits, “Then there is some that I can still teach you.”

-

A week after that talk, Keith wakes from a terrifyingly realistic dream involving a certain other Paladin of the Black Lion, and realizes with an abruptness that does absolutely nothing to lessen the redness of his face that it’s Shiro. He’s eternally love-bonded to Shiro and really the realization shouldn’t surprise him but it feels like he’s been punched right in the face by his own feelings.

Krolia, who woke when he startled awake, has a knowing look on her face. Keith--Keith wishes he could melt into the whale they’re riding when she says, “It makes sense now, hm?”

He doesn’t question how she knows; after all, she’s his mother.

-

(he knows; for god’s sake, he basically is always talking or thinking about Shiro)

-

“Shiro, it’s Keith,” those words--he’d been waiting to say them for over two years. Though he’d hoped the circumstances to be better, it’s still a relief to see Shiro on the fuzzy screen, surrounded by the other Paladins.

But, god, in less than an hour that welcome does not matter anymore. Black welcomes him with a warm, warning touch to his mind as he takes his seat as the Black Paladin for the first time in years; that touch alone settles him, centers him. Getting Lotor is not important, but Shiro is.

-

The facility is eerily quiet, though he knows he is not the only one there. He wants to let down his guard, because it’s  _ Shiro _ , but nothing feels right. It feels like everything about the facility, about Shiro, was taken and carefully shifted only slightly, but enough to leave Keith off-balance.

And, oh. How right he is.

There are hundreds of clones, thousands maybe, all illuminated the same eerie purple as Shiro’s

( _ not _ Shiro’s)

arm.

Keith has had many nightmares, but none as particularly bad as this one, made worse as it is real, it is happening, he is  _ fighting Shiro _ and it is increasingly looking like neither of them will make it off of this broken planet. It feels like his heart has shattered like glass, like he can’t breathe from the agony in his chest.

He is so close, so close to giving up when they fall on the suspension disc, as the energy from the sword burns his cheek, as he chokes out, “I love you.”

They fall.

-

They fall, and Keith shoves the blade back in the sheath on his back, pulls Shiro close, as close as he can. The air hurts, his whole body hurts, but he doesn’t let go.

The last words he was able to say ring in his mind as everything goes black.

-

To be cradled again in Black, with Shiro there, Shiro around him--

The relief of knowing what has happened, that they’ve all survived, is cut by the fact that the rest of Voltron is on the other side of the universe and that Shiro’s soul is trapped within the Black Lion and--

Keith can’t do this alone. He  _ can’t _ . The pull in his stomach is near-painful but he ignores and works through it, pleads with Black

(with Shiro)

to get him there, to his team, in time. He can feel the phantom touch of Shiro’s hands covering his own, as the Black Lion jumps, and forms wings.

-

It’s when Shiro’s back--permanently,  _ physically _ back in the body of his clone--that the wear of the fight finally hits Keith. Not just his fight with not-Shiro, but ridding the universe of Lotor, having to deal with so much in so short a time. Despite the feeling of fullness in his chest and mind, it’s suddenly a little difficult to stand.

Krolia catches him by the elbow when the others crowd the Altean pod Shiro is still sitting in, looking completely disoriented. She leads him away, sits him on crate.

“You haven’t slept, have you?” Her voice is soft, but full of concern, one of her hands warm against his cheek.

No, he hasn’t slept--for that matter, he hasn’t done much of anything except stay by Shiro. The last time he remembers eating was before everything else, while they were blasting through the Quantum Abyss as fast as possible in the old Altean shuttle. “No,” he finally forces himself to say, and they’ve been alone long enough that the others are starting to crowd over to them in concern.

The look she gives him is one he grew used to seeing while they were in the Abyss. Eyebrows pinched, mouth a flat line. A gesture with her hand; he leans forward.

“You have a fever,” Krolia says. Her forehead is warm against his where she’s leaned him forward, and Keith can hear Allura and Hunk making worried noises. “Ribs?” Keith grimaces. He’s fairly sure they’re bruised, at least. “Anything else?” she’s worried, but her tone remains no-nonsense. Keith shakes his head; mostly just bruises, and those have always healed quick for him.

“Keith?” That rasp--that’s Shiro, and Keith breathes deeply so he won’t jerk away from his mom just to see Shiro. Now that his spirit is back in his body, the pull in Keith’s gut is exponentially stronger than it’s ever been, and apparently the struggle he’s mentally going through is blatant on his face.

Krolia’s face melts into a smile, a private one only for Keith. She knows, of course. “I’ll go check the medical kit. Stay here.”

“Keith,” that’s Allura, pushing her way through everyone else, “what’s going on?”

“He’ll be fine,” Krolia’s voice is loud and clear from where she’s in the Black Lion’s throat, and the click of her boots signals her return. “He just needs some rest.”

“Keith,” again, Shiro, but he’s behind Allura, worry lining his face as he pushes past her, catches Keith’s arm in his hand. Has he always had eyes that sparkle like nebulae? The bond, comfortable in Keith’s chest, hums at their closeness.

“Shiro,” Keith replies, with a crooked smile.

Krolia huffs out a laugh, and separates them

-

They’re alone in the cockpit of the Black Lion, Krolia off visiting Pidge to play Zelda (the height of Earth entertainment, she has said), and Keith is debating putting the lion on auto the catch a nap. They’ve been flying for at least three quintants, and Keith has spent most of that time fixing mechanical problems cropping up in the Black Lion.

Shiro, conversely, has spent most of that time sleeping in what is properly Keith’s bunk, but Keith has never cared less about something in his life. Plus, after passing out for roughly a quintant before they actually left the planet they’d been on, he’s fine with pretty much anything. Getting back to Earth--that’s much more important.

A hand drops onto his shoulder, and it’s telling that Keith isn’t even surprised. He just knows.

“Have you slept?” Shiro’s voice is...cautious.

After that first day, when he woke up from the pod, they hadn’t had a real chance to talk.  _ Haven’t _ had a real chance to talk, and they need to. 

“Shiro--” he says, but the other man cuts him off.

“I’m sorry. I--” The touch is gentle, and Keith is almost unaware of it; the scar tissue is thick on his cheek, but sensitive along the smooth edges. “I did this to you,” Shiro’s voice is pained.

Keith knows that line of reasoning, has expected it. But that doesn’t make it hurt any less, that Shiro blames himself.

“No,” Keith’s voice comes out harsher than he intended it as he switches the autopilot on, swivels in the chair. “You did not do it.”

“Keith,” Shiro almost sounds surprised.

“Allura did not use Altean alchemy to remove your soul from the Black Lion and place it in the body of one of your clones for you to blame yourself for the things that were beyond your control,” Keith says, and he doesn’t realize he’s holding Shiro’s hand with both of his own until Shiro squeezes them, eyes bright. In thanks, maybe.

The bond vibrates like the purring of a cat (or, he thinks, a lion) deep in his chest. Shiro’s face is pink, along the high planes of his cheekbones, the shells of his ears. A good color for him, Keith thinks absently, one that he hasn’t seen since their time in the Garrison. He squeezes Shiro’s hand again, “I would never blame you for this. And it  _ wasn’t  _ you.”

A minute, then two and three pass in silence. Neither of them move; unknown constellations flicker by outside Black.

And Keith makes a decision that, regardless of what happens, will change his life.

“You remember the fight,” it isn’t a question; Shiro dips his head, once.

“I remember everything,” Shiro says.

“I mean what I said then,” Keith says in return. “ _ Everything _ I said.” A moment passes, and Shiro processes that.

Understanding comes with a more violent blossoming of color to his cheeks. “Everything?” he says, a little faintly.

“Everything,” Keith reaffirms.

“Oh,” even more faintly.

“Do you remember,” he knows the transition is awkward, but he continues nonetheless, “the Traxor system? Coran was talking about Crochaxes.”

“The soul--oh,” it sort of sounds like Shiro has been punched in the gut, “wait, do you mean--but you’re not full Galra, how do you know--”

“Shiro,” Keith says, “I know.”

“Oh,” and a smile curves up his lips, disbelieving, ecstatic.

Keith raises an eyebrow at that. He’s very much done waiting. “I’m going to kiss you, if you’re okay with that.”

But Shiro is the one to pull him up, press their lips messily together. “Me too,” Shiro says, the smile on his face wider than Keith thinks he’s ever seen it. “ _ God _ , Keith, I love you, too.”

And if it takes Krolia a while to return to the Black Lion, neither of them are complaining.


End file.
